Thanks for allowing 10 youngsters to attend Boozer basketball camp

Posted: Sunday, August 16, 2009

On behalf of the youngsters and teenagers both here at the Zach Gordon Youth Center and in the greater Juneau community - and especially those 10 who were fortunate enough to receive the benefit - we wish to express our deep appreciation and gratitude to all of the members of the Zach Gordon Alumni Fund Committee for their generosity in supplying full scholarships that allowed 10 of Juneau's youth - including eight who are regular patrons of the ZGYC - to attend the Carlos Boozer Basketball Camp recently held at Juneau-Douglas High School.

As in every other Alaskan city, town and village, basketball is tremendously popular in Juneau - a fact that was recognized even more than fifty years ago by our namesake, Zach Gordon himself, who encouraged many of the youth he worked with in the past to play this very enjoyable and healthy sport. Fast forward to the present and today's youth are once again extremely lucky to have such a strong supporter of basketball in Juneau's very own home-grown celebrity, Carlos Boozer, former JDHS and Duke University and current NBA star player with the Utah Jazz.

Thanks to the efforts of the Zach Gordon Alumni Fund Committee, ten additional kids from Juneau were able to participate in a fun-filled basketball camp where they could not only hone their skills through expert instruction from Carlos and his camp staff (featuring Boozer's Duke teammates and fellow NBA players, Corey Maggette and Jay Williams) but also learn some valuable advice when they heard Carlos tell them that using drugs will greatly harm their future, both in basketball and life's other activities as well.

Carlos intends to make his basketball camp an annual event here in Juneau and we applaud the Zach Gordon Alumni Fund Committee for helping to make all of this possible and contributing to the future success of Juneau's youth.